The present invention relates generally to an air based tungsten oxide/titanium dioxide photocatalyst that oxidizes gaseous contaminants in the air that adsorb onto the photocatalytic surface to form carbon dioxide, water, and other substances.
Indoor air can include trace amounts of contaminants, including volatile organic compounds such as formaldehyde, toluene, propanal, butene, and acetaldehyde. Absorbent air filters, such as activated carbon, have been employed to remove these contaminants from the air. As air flows through the filter, the filter blocks the passage of the contaminants, allowing contaminant free air to flow from the filter. A drawback to employing filters is that they simply block the passage of contaminants and do not destroy them.
Titanium dioxide has been employed as a photocatalyst in an air purifier to destroy contaminants. When the titanium dioxide is illuminated with ultraviolet light, photons are absorbed by the titanium dioxide, promoting an electron from the valence band to the conduction band, thus producing a hole in the valence band and adding an electron in the conduction band. The promoted electron reacts with oxygen, and the hole remaining in the valence band reacts with water, forming reactive hydroxyl radicals. When a contaminant adsorbs onto the titanium dioxide photocatalyst, the hydroxyl radicals attack and oxidize the contaminants to water, carbon dioxide, and other substances. A drawback to the titanium dioxide photocatalyst of the prior art is that it has limited reactivity. Additionally, humidity can greatly affect the photocatalytic performance of the titanium dioxide and therefore the oxidation rate of the contaminants.
Metal oxide/titanium dioxide photocatalysts have been employed as a water-phase photocatalyst to remove contaminants from a water flow. Water phase chemistry is significantly different from air phase chemistry. The reaction mechanisms are in general different in each phase. Therefore, a catalyst designed for aqueous phase chemistry does not perform in the same manner as a catalyst designed for gas phase chemistry. Additionally, the hydroxyl radical can diffuse away from the photocatalyst surface in an aqueous phase, and the hydroxy radical does not diffuse away from the photocatalyst surface in the gas phase. Finally in the water phase, the water and ionic species in the water compete with the contaminants for adsorption sites on the photocatalyst, also reducing the photocatalytic performance.
Sol-gel coating processes have been employed to create a photocatalytic suspension that is applied to a substrate to create a photocatalytic coating. The sol-gel coating process achieves the desired photocatalytic loading and high adhesion performance through multiple dip coating processes. A drawback to the sol-gel coating process is that it requires expensive titanium precursors (such as titanium isopropoxide) and complicated reflux/sonication procedures. Therefore, the sol-gel coating process is costly and labor intensive.
Hence, there is a need for an air-based photocatalyst for oxidizing contaminants having an increased reactivity, a lower sensitivity to humidity variations, and a cost effective process to coat the photocatalyst to a substrate.